Making Christmas
by chibikurohikitsune and Nimeria
Summary: Trouble in Atlantis doesn’t work around the holiday schedule, but sometimes the holiday schedule can be adjusted to work around the trouble. A sort of prequel companion piece to my Children of the Legend series, but can be read alone.


**Title:**Making Christmas

**Summary: **Trouble in Atlantis doesn't work around the holiday schedule, but sometimes the holiday schedule can be adjusted to work around the trouble. A sort of prequel companion piece to my Children of the Legend series, but can be read alone.

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Stargate Atlantis or anything therefore associated with it, I would be living on the set and I would be sleeping in a hammock tied to the 'Gate. Since I don't live on the set and I don't sleep in a hammock tied to the 'Gate, it can be reasonably inferred that I do not own Stargate Atlantis or anything therefore associated with it besides the plots of my stories.

**A/N: **This would be an apology to the readers of my Children of the Legend series readers. I am so very sorry about how long it is taking me to upload the next fic. I have taken issue with one of the scenes in the second chapter and am attempting to rewrite it up to par. Rest assured that the fic, entitled "Children of the Legend: Drowning", will be posted and soon. The first chapter is in the middle of its beta-ing stage, for which I'd very much like to thank Bann as always. Said first chapter will be posted ASAP with the others hopefully to follow soon. With that in mind, here is my apology for the delay of _months._ Unfortunately even this is late.

Making Christmas

Ten-year-old Ashlei Sheppard was playing tag with her brothers when the alarms began to sound. While the alarms themselves were a natural occurrence and normally caused little concern to the girl at all, there was something rather insistent about this sound that piqued her interest. The dark-haired child stopped just short of the lab that had been designated as the "safe zone" (Rodney's lab, incidentally) and listened. Her older brother, who was not expecting the sudden stop to a full tilt sprint for safety, skidded into her. The two of them toppled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

"Ashlei, what gives?" The older child untangles himself and stands, brushing a lock of brown hair out of his dark emerald eyes. He offers his hand to help his sister to her feet. "It's just the 'Gate alarms. Nothing we need to be worried about. There'd be other alarms if it was a big deal."

"I know." She glares mildly at her brother for the slight insult to her intelligence. "There's just something weird about it."

"They sound the same as they always do." He rolls his eyes, ignoring her glare. "C'mon. We may as well get to 'safe' before Alan shows up." Ashlei allows her brother to tow her toward Rodney's lab even as the youngest of the three, comes sprinting around the corner. Ashlei giggles at the frustrated look on Alan's face.

"Aaron." The boy whines. "That wasn't fair. The transporters are out-of-bounds!"

"Since when?"

"Since always."

"Says who?"

"The rules."

"Since when?"

Realizing that her brothers have no intention of stopping their petty (and somewhat circular) argument anytime soon, Ashlei leans against the nearby wall and slides down it, still in reach of the door to the lab should she need to quickly be "safe." She tilts her head a little to the side and closes her eyes, listening for whatever it was she had heard earlier that made her think these alarms were different.

The alarms stop abruptly, causing Ashlei to relax completely. Aaron pauses in the argument long enough to shoot an '(I told you so.)' her way down their telepathic link. She sticks her tongue out at his back.

Unsure of what to do now that their game of tag has been interrupted, Ashlei leans her head back against the wall and sighs. Sometimes her brothers are too much for even her to handle. She remains in her comfortably reclined position for awhile, half listening to her brothers Aaron and Alan as their bickering moves on from the stated rules of the game to something else entirely and half waiting for Rodney to come out of his lab and tell them to go be annoying someplace else.

Eventually becoming bored of both activities, the ten-year-old climbs back to her feet, intending to end the argument between the two boys and convince them to restart the game. The pattering of footfalls alerts her to the approach of someone else even as a nine-year-old Del McKay comes sprinting around the corner.

"Ashlei, Ashlei! You gotta come quick!" Del pants as she slides to a stop in front of her friend. "You gotta come quick!" The younger girl repeats after taking a moment to catch her breath. Ashlei and the two boys stare at her in a mixture of confusion and astonishment. Del glares at them. "Argh. Come on!" She snags her friends arm and starts to tug Ashlei back up the hallway.

"Where are we going? Del, what's going on?" Before the younger can even think of answering, however, the door to the lab slides open and Rodney walks out, his hand to the radio ear piece he is wearing. He looks around and seems to do a quick check of the four children in front of him.

"No, it's fine Elizabeth. They're all right here anyway." He pauses and listens to something. "Something like that I'm sure." He pauses again. "It wouldn't surprise me. You want me to bring them down there?" He listens and then nods. "Right. I'll tell them. See you in a minute." He deactivates the radio and turns his attention to the four children standing before him, concentrating first on the three Sheppards. "Your mother has asked me to bring you down to the infirmary."

"Infirmary?" Alan starts. "Why do we need to-"

"She's also told me to tell you that she'll explain everything once you get there, and that you don't need to worry."

"Oh."

"Dad?" Del asks quietly. Rodney turns his attention to his daughter and smiles reassuringly.

"You don't need to worry either. It's nothing as serious as I'm sure you must have thought it was to come sprinting all the way out here looking for them." He stoops down and picks his daughter up. Noticing the confused look on her face he explains. "I heard you. Footfalls echo, especially speedy ones. Everything is fine." He turns his attention to the triplets now standing together behind him. "Come on. The sooner we get down there, the sooner everyone stops worrying."

Despite Rodney's words, the lack of a desire to remain with his work and the lack of the sarcasm that normally colored his speech caused some measure of concern in the Sheppard kids.

'(What do you think is wrong?)'

'(It's something bad. I'm sure of it. Something really really bad has-)'

'(Shut up, Alan.)' Aaron and Ashlei command at the same time in the same exasperated tone.

'(You heard Rodney.)' Ashlei continues, gentler now. '(He said there was nothing to be worried about.)'

'(There's _never _anything to be worried about.)'

'(Aaron, whose side are you on?!)' She demands irritably of her brother, hazel eyes narrowing slightly in frustration.

'(Look. Alan, if there was something to be worried about, mom would have come and gotten us herself, even if it was something really serious.)' Aaron reasons, and it's hard to tell if the placating tone is more for his sister's or his brother's sake.

'(Unless she has to do leader stuff, she _always_ comes and gets us herself.)' Ashlei agrees. Then realizes from the look on his face how her brother has taken this and adds '(When it's serious, I mean. If it's not, then she just sends someone for us.)'

'(Oh.)' Alan nods in understanding, but doesn't seem to be entirely convinced. Before Ashlei and Aaron can continue reassuring their brother, however, they realize that they have reached the infirmary.

Rodney sets Del down, shoots a quick 'Behave" look at the four of them, and then opens the door. Ashlei steps into the room and sees:

"Daddy!" She yelps and dashes across the room, dodging several nurses and a cart toward her father, just barely managing to control her urge to jump up onto the bed. Hazel eyes meet hazel eyes and General John Sheppard chuckles.

"Hello, Sweetie." He grins as his daughter gives him an anxious look.

"Ashlei." Her mother is sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the bed from her. "Ashlei, you have to be careful. You can't just go running through here like that." Elizabeth chides gently.

"Sorry, mama." The girl apologizes quietly as Rodney, her brothers, and Del come to join them at a much more acceptable pace.

"So, what happened exactly?" Rodney asks with a level of faint accusation in his voice once he's standing in front of the bed.

"The ceiling caved in, Rodney. It wasn't anything anyone could have predicted. The sensors in that area were down. That's why we were down there in the first place. Marissa was curious about something the records said was supposed to be down in that area, but the area was still a little unstable so I told her I'd go with her. We'd been down there maybe twenty minutes when the ceiling gave right over her. I tried to get her out of the way…" The dark-haired general trails off, a hint of regret coloring his tone.

"You," a musical voice proclaims from behind them "did more than you needed to. You should have been getting out of the way yourself, not jumping into the middle of it." Marissa McKay, wife of Rodney and mother of Del, shoots a reproachful look at John Sheppard from normally warm and loving chocolate colored eyes. Her arm is in a sling and her long blonde hair has been pulled back to accommodate the bandage on her forehead, but she appears to be otherwise unharmed by the cave in.

"Mama!" Del hugs her mother. Marissa wraps her good arm around her daughter and looks up at her husband.

"Don't glare at him like that, Rodney. It's not his fault." She admonishes. Rodney hesitates and then gives John a nod. The nod is returned and twinkling hazel eyes shift minutely toward Marissa, who smiles in return.

"You're okay, then?" Elizabeth asks gently, ignoring the manly-thankful-pride thing going on between John and Rodney. The expedition leader stood from her chair and walked over to the blonde woman.

"Just a broken arm and a minor cut. Carson even said it was okay for me to leave, as long as I don't go back to work." Marissa smiles at the other woman, and gently tugs her daughter's arms from around her waist. Del motions to her best friend, who joins her only too willingly as their fathers start a slightly more bantering version of the conversation their mothers are about to have.

"That's fantastic." Elizabeth smiles back.

"What about..?" Marissa trails off after a meaningful glance towards the dark haired man in the bed.

"Yeah, mama" Alan echoes the question after gaining his mother's attention."What about dad?"

"Well, darling" Elizabeth sits in a nearby chair to put herself at an eye level closer to her children. "Your father was more seriously injured than Marissa. It's not terribly serious or life threatening in anyway, but he is going to be here for awhile."

"How long?" Ashlei returns to her father's side and grabs hold of his arm. The whiteness of her knuckles and the slight wince on John's face hint that the girl is gripping harder than is necessary. After a moment, she ceases to restrain herself and uses the chair by the bed to climb up onto it with him. The general grins and ruffles his daughter's hair, but he doesn't answer her question.

Elizabeth just smiles fondly at the scene as her two sons flank either side of the bed. Marissa meets Rodney's eyes over the heads of the three youngsters and gives him a slightly guilty look. He shakes his head at her and glares slightly, laser blue eyes flickering toward the general before he repeats the head shaking. The message is clear to anyone who knows Rodney well enough. _Don't blame yourself for this. It isn't anybody's fault. He would have done the same for anyone and if you blame yourself it will upset him. _

Marissa sighs and nods in understanding. She bends down, picks up her daughter and joins the others by John's bed.

"How long, Daddy?" Ashlei repeats, an almost desperate undertone in her worried ten-year-old voice. John Sheppard sighs and looks over toward his wife, who nods slightly. He takes a deep breath and adopts a tone that is meant to distract and subvert. It is a tone he dislikes having to use on his children but with the day after tomorrow being what it is…

"Three days, Ash. That's it. Just three days, and the last day is really more for show and observation than anything. It's nothing terribly serious. Okay?" He sees realization cross the faces of the other two adults and then slight anguish cross Elizabeth's as she looks from him to their children and back. He nods sadly.

For a moment, he thinks his ploy has worked on his children, but Aaron is clever and while his sister may be an eternal optimist and his brother a pessimist, Aaron is already a realist. He realizes exactly what the date is and exactly what this means. The sadness crosses his face moments before it hits the other two courtesy of their link.

"That includes Christmas!" Ashlei whines miserably. He pulls her into as much of a hug as he can manage with his injured rib cage. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rodney, Marissa, and Delilah slip quietly out of the room.

"I know it does, sweetie." He kisses her forehead, waiting for the further realization that they have to cancel their Christmas trip to sink in.

"That means we can't go camping!" Alan adds.

"I know. I'm so sorry guys. I really am. You could go camping without me. Ronon and the others will look after you."

"We can't go camping without you." Aaron protests. "It was your idea!"

"Now, kids. I'm sure your father will understand if you go without him."

"That's right. I won't ruin your Christmas. Go on." John agrees.

"But it isn't really Christmas without you, daddy." Ashlei sits back on her heels, the faintest hint of a tear at the corner of her eye.

"That's nice to hear, sweetie. Makes an old man happy."

"You aren't old!"

John laughed at the strong retort from his triplets. Things would work out. They always did.

* * *

Two days later, his children and his wife surprised him when he woke up with a camp-like set up in his private room just off the infirmary. They'd set up a tent in the corner, draped a sheet over his bed to make it seem tent like, and even convinced Carson to let them have a small Bunsen burner to use to roast marshmallows and hot dogs. Somehow, the lighting of the room made it seem like the fire was much larger and the only thing lighting the room. 

Somehow (and he suspected Ronon had had something to do with it) they had gotten a very small pine-like tree and decorated it. Presents had been shoved underneath where they would fit and then stacked around where they wouldn't. Elizabeth had procured a non-alcoholic version of the egg nog that was circling the city's population. Later, she left momentarily to attain some of the Christmas themed food the mess hall was serving.

Ronon, Teyla, Rodney, Marissa, Carson, Laura, Radek, Lorne and various others dropped in as the day went by to wish the family a merry Christmas and to express their hope that Sheppard be up and about soon. Ronon confirmed his part in the acquiring the tree. Rodney claimed credit for the flickering fire-like lighting. Radek argued that he had helped and that Rodney was…something John didn't think should be repeated in English in front of young children.

Carson and Laura had brought a plate of Christmas cookies they had appropriated from the staff party. Teyla and Marissa had dragged their husbands out of the room and off to the jumper bay for the camping trip as soon as it began to become apparent that the two of them and John were about to start a heated argument over some inanity or another. Elizabeth had thanked them as strongly as silent means would allow her to do so.

Lorne had taken over as Santa when it had become clear that Sheppard's injury would prevent him from playing the part and Lorne stopped by with Secret Santa presents for the triplets and their parents. He and Sheppard had then gotten into a "completely friendly and non-competitive" discussion over which of them made a better Santa. Just as Elizabeth had given up hope on them ever reaching at least a stalemate, someone from the staff party had radioed down to make sure Lorne was okay. He had grinned sheepishly, responded that he was on his way, wished the Sheppards a merry Christmas, and left.

By the end of the evening, John had to conclude that the day had been far more enjoyable than he would have originally thought an in room camping trip would be. He never found out whose idea it had been. Whenever he asked the kids all pointed at each other or their mother and Elizabeth just beamed knowingly. He eventually gave up when he realized that his children were pointing at a different person each time and that his wife's smile was beginning to border on a smirk. As the children finally settled down to sleep in their tent, he got something close to an answer from Elizabeth.

"It was a team effort John. I was very proud of them. Ronon tried to convince them that going on the camping trip was what you would want, but they just didn't really want to go anymore. Even though they had been looking forward to that camping trip for months, they refused to go if it meant you would be here alone."

"Would I have been alone?"

"Of course not, I would have been here, but they didn't seem to care. They all pitched in ideas once we had the basics down. They love you very much."

"I know they do, I love them, too. And you, of course."

"Of course." Elizabeth agrees with a smile. She stretches out on the other bed nearby. "It amazes me, John. I think our ten-year-olds know more about the true spirit of Christmas than some adults ever do."

"Oh?" He queries, hazel eyes sparkling. He understands fully what she means, but he likes to tease. Realizing this, Elizabeth gives him a fake look of indignation.

"They made yours, didn't they?"

"So they did" his eyes twinkle with a fond look as he turns his gaze toward the tent where the three children are now sleeping. "So they did."


End file.
